Time for leaders to make peace in NHL labor talks

Dec. 29, 2012
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We saw Bill Daly and Steve Fehr on the same stage together three weeks ago. Let's hope that Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr will be up there together soon to announce a labor agreement. / Bruce Bennett, Getty Images

by Kevin Allen, USA TODAY Sports

by Kevin Allen, USA TODAY Sports

The sincerity of Commissioner Gary Bettman's desire to bring an end to this 105-day-old lockout is evident in his willingness to provide NHL Players' Association executive director Donald Fehr another shot at infuriating owners.

Undoubtedly, owners were hoping that the players would make another offer and give the owners a yes or no option on the NHL season.

Instead, they are again left waiting for Fehr's response to their latest proposal, which includes a softening of their position on three key issues, plus the reinstatement of the $300 million in "make whole" money.

Owners and players were expected to talk via conference call Saturday and the two sides are supposed to resume negotiations in New York on Sunday. What will happen this weekend is anyone's guess, but the prevailing player sentiment among the vocal minority is that the owners' proposal was a positive step, but they still aren't going to be pushed around.

It certainly sounded like the final round of chest beating, or at least we have to hope that it is.

What we have to hope happens this weekend is that both sides move permanently beyond the land of posturing and gamesmanship and into the real world, where the NHL is about to go over the fiscal cliff and take a very deep fall.

Fehr said three weeks ago that the two sides were very close, and if he truly believed that, then the differences between them have to be almost non-existent at this point.

When Fehr said the sides were close, the owners wanted a five-year cap on individual contracts, with a seven-year provision for teams signing their own players.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly uttered his famous line that this issue was the "hill' owners were willing to "die on."

Players were offering an eight-year cap. Now, owners are offering a six-year cap, with the same seventh-year allowance.

Owners were asking for a 5% year-to-year variance limit, up or down, on contracts, and now they have softened it to a 10% variance.

With the salary cap heading downward because players have agreed to a 50-50 revenue, players were looking for the NHL to allow teams to buy out some players before the 2013-14 season to free up some cap space

Now, owners are offering one compliance buyout per team that wouldn't count against the salary cap. However, the buyout would count against the players' 50% share.

All of these individual contract issues are important to players. They have rightfully pointed out that the primary issues in these negotiations have been about reducing their share of the pie and curtailing their rights.

The truth is that from the players' perspective, if the primary objective was to prevent massive destruction of player individual contracting rights, then Fehr has led a successful campaign. This fight has been ferocious and nasty enough to create scars that won't easily heal. But the owners obviously aren't getting all of the changes they wanted. The players knew from the beginning they were going to have to reduce their share to 50%, but they wanted a more gradual descent and they have essentially accomplished that through the "make whole" deferred payments, or the transition payments, as players call it.

But the players took heavy casualties in this battle. Based on the hope of playing a 48-game season, players have already lost more than $700 million in salary. Owners' revenue losses have been calculated at $18 million to $20 million a day.

That's what you hope everyone remembers over these next two days.

It's time to make negotiations strictly about reality. And the reality is that there still could be another $2 billion lost by both sides if this season gets canceled. And that doesn't count the long-term damage that could theoretically occur through fan backlash.

The reality is that there is no issue left unsettled that is worth that losing that much money over.

Friday, the undercurrent around the league was that one of the primary player concerns now is the escrow payments they will have to pay in the second year when the salary cap drops to $60 million.

Even though I don't have an economics major from Princeton as the Florida Panthers' George Parros has, I can still tell you that this issue is not worth risking another $1 billion over.

Now is the time for leaders on both sides to locate the road to peace. The best way to heal the wounds would be to start a season on Jan. 19.

Being a great general should require the courage to push forward in the battle and the wisdom to know when it is time to agree to an armistice.